Of freaking Petals and Ponies
by ShindaHotaru
Summary: Gold and Silver made a bet on Gold's patience. Being dead set on winning this bet, Gold is convinced to make it through the last week of the bet but then something happens that ruins everything. [Hints of Lance/Gold, rated T for language]


It was only five past eight and Gold was already done with humanity. His day at work usually began at 7.30am, not his favorite time of day to face society but he couldn't help it, could he? Money was needed in order to pay the rent and food and the only decent job he had found was at this shitty office.

Most of the time it was fine, and really decent, but the rest of the time he couldn't help but ball his hands into fists and swallow any anger from bursting out of him. He was pretty practiced when it came to containing his feelings such as rage and the urge to kill someone with an axe; from middle to high school he had wasted his time being around fools and dumbasses and if they had been good for one thing, then for training his patience.

At least he believed he was pretty patient. According to Silver, his aggressive temper was just boiling inside of him and only one idiot was needed to push the right button and he would erupt like Cinnabar's volcano. Silver was one to talk though, despite his calm and reserved manner, he was easy to annoy.

So on the evening before Gold's first day at the new job, they had been sitting in the living-room of their shared flat and Silver had picked up his glass of good Mahogany beer and made them bet on how fast Gold would explode.

Long story short, he was pretty practiced at keeping his anger to himself and he wouldn't lose. It was just one more week and he would win, just one more fucking week and that smug smirk on Silver's face would fall off. Before Gold would wipe it off his face with his hand. Or a frying pan, it didn't matter.

The downside of this was that his co-workers didn't make things easy for him. Upon applying, he had expected the typical dull and incompetent employees -any office or shop or workplace in general had them-, nothing you couldn't ignore or get used to. But reality turned out to be a freak show, and when he had chosen that word in front of Silver, he had meant it as it was; a show full of freaks.

As mentioned earlier - his co-workers made things a lot harder for him. At some point, banging your head against the nearest wall had never seemed more justified as when the same guy makes the same stupid mistakes five times in a row - in only three days. And to make it clearer: their jobs were easy. All they had to do was arranging appointments for their boss, managing his agenda, setting up his performance shows, taking care of the finances and guarding his public appearance. Nothing too difficult, considering you had finished high school. Most of them even had a degree in their field which only made it harder for Gold not to grab a chair and knock it over their head when they again had him fix something they were supposed to handle in their sleep.

Sometimes he wondered if he was running that shitty office on his own. Probably he was.

Starting today, the last week of the bet was on and when waking up, he had been convinced it would be a piece of cake to win. They couldn't be any worse than usual and so far, he had managed and handled any outburst of their idiocy perfectly well. There was nothing between him and his triumph over Silver, just one more week of work and the freaks. No one could prevent any of that from happening, nobody could break his willpower and make him turn into a raging Tauros. And he was so certain about himself that he was blind to the simple things.

The office door hadn't even fallen shut yet and he wanted to turn on his heel and go back home. He should have, he figured out later, it would've saved the last bit of sanity he had left. Instead he stood still in a puddle of red rose petals to his feet, the whole floor was covered in that stuff like a huge pool of flower petals. If you'd remove the office furniture, it probably would've been a pool of roses, the red stuff was almost reaching his ankles.

First strike. But he could live with that, he had had enough girlfriends in his life and being friends with Crystal had made him immune to kitschy girly shit. He could live with those rose petals, he would just sweep them off in a large radius around his desk and that was that.

Before walking over to the window side of the office where his spot was, Gold left straight for the kitchen where they kept the hand-brush and dustpan to get rid of all the crazy kitsch. On his way, he found several bouquets of roses standing at the foot of the walls, on the shelves, on the window sills, everywhere you could think of. A chain of roses was taped to the doorframe of the kitchen along with a chain of red lights, it made Gold roll his eyes in annoyance but it was good, it was fine, he could ignore it as well.

Since the door was kind of broken that you couldn't shut it or use the handle, he placed his palm on its middle and shoved it open, slipped into the room and let the door fall back behind him. As expected the room was empty, everybody was at their computers doing their jobs or at least trying to do them.

White and wooden as usual, the kitchen seemed safe from the red rose madness of the rest of the office. Except for one thing: The longer he stayed inside, the more he inhaled some unpleasant scent that sent uncomfortable shivers down his spine and made his toes curl. What used to be the scent of freshly brewed coffee was now the stink of roses. Second strike.

Oh, no, no. He wouldn't let this ruin his day. Only imagining the face of Silver whenever he won over him helped him enough to keep his cool. He was stronger than Silver might think and after all, this cynical, short-tempered part of his personality was Silver's fault anyway. It was just impossible not to copy it from him.

After getting the hand-brush and dustpan, he fixed himself a mug of coffee (that, disregarding how intense its scent was, lost big time against the incense sticks on each fucking shelf) and went to his desk. He put down his coffee and bag, bent down and started to fill his trash can with the petals but even when it was bursting, there were still too many petals. They'd fill in the gaps the ones he'd thrown away left and he'd have to get a vacuum-cleaner to get rid of them all but the only person who had access to it was the cleaning lady who was anywhere but here.

Well, he had to accept it. Or rather, ignore it as best as he could. So far, no one had talked to him nor looked at him and he couldn't be any happier, it somehow made up for the decoration. A sip from his coffee and the flash of his computer screen, and he was at peace with the world. For now.

It all ended like the last act of a dramatic play, with loud and angry orchestral music. And it made him feel a little apocalyptic, a stream of images appeared before his eyes like in those tales about last seconds before death.

Third strike was when Takashi from the desk in front of his lit an incense stick _right there on his desk_ and blew the smoke over to him, more or less on purpose.

The fourth and fifth were on the same level of cruelty, Gold couldn't decide which act was worse than the other. Someone threw a thousand of rose petals over his head and desk, and acted as if it was a stupid coincidence that from a full bag of stinking petals one would fall right into his innocent and pure coffee.

It took him some effort not to splash the hot content of his mug into that person's face. It wasn't fine but it was okay.

And there he was again, only at work for half an hour and already done with _everyone_. And his boss wasn't even around.

The coast was clear at least for another thirty minutes. It had taken him a lot of strength in soothing himself to ignore the strange flavor to his beloved coffee, and that the red trash was in his hair, his hood, under his shirt and some tiny petals even stuck between the keys of his keyboard, and that his trash can was just as done with this bullshit as he was.

His doctrine was ten strikes before snapping, another five strikes before voicing his dissatisfaction, and finally another three before beating someone up. Usually he only reached three strikes, on rare occasions eight over a whole day. Which meant that being on five strikes within half an hour already created the prospect of today becoming the most horrible day in human history.

So what if Silver had planned all this? And his co-workers were stupid enough to do whatever that douchebag would demand, he had this thing to make people obey. With those idiots (his gaze fell on Yamada who was again trying to copy papers without turning the machine on) it would be an easy task to turn them into his puppets.

That idea seemed right for a short moment but Gold knew his childhood friend too well to know he would never use people for anything simply because he hated people and hated talking to them more than he had to.

Enough of that, he thought, and opened the files he was currently working on. Work usually distracted him from anything and he needed that distraction to win the bet. That fucking bet, that fucking idiot, he'd kill Silver if he would lose the bet.

His job was to manage the in- and outcome, order any kind of supplies their boss needed for his shows and any office-related purchases. Most of their income came from the shows, only a little from merchandising. Which, by the way, was a waste of money in Gold's opinion. But his opinion had never been requested or heard, in the first weeks in this office he had tried to change a few things but his boss would just wave his hand in that sassy manner of his as if to shove it off like an annoying bug.

Nothing worked out in this office, the schedules of shows were a total mess but no one seemed to know how to fix it. The first week of his job he had spent with sorting out the chaos the guy before him had left, and chaos was even an understatement. That guy hadn't probably worked at all, or else he couldn't understand how they ended up with such a high debt when their boss' shows brought in quite some money.

The first weeks had been the worst. Their boss usually came once a day into the office in his show robe, his glittering violet cape swirling along with his moves when he burst in through the door. His visits were short as well, he only came to announce whatever new cape or hat or bow tie he wanted for his next show and would almost fly out of the office again.

With the huge debt, it was Gold's responsibility to _not_ buy whatever their boss wanted, so he tried to explain it to him over and over again but to no avail. Luckily, his boss didn't notice if Gold bought what he wanted or not, so he had cut short all purchases to save some money. Well, no one had noticed that either so far, then again, no one ever noticed anything.

Probably the best part about his job was that he was usually provided with a list of things owned by their boss. As an entertainer as well as magician, their boss had plenty of outfits to wear on stage, and with plenty he meant too many. But enough for an evening-filling show of 'my boss' most ridiculous outfits' that Gold and Silver once in a while enjoyed at home. Seeing Silver almost laughing himself off the couch was worth breaking every promise he'd made to keep his boss' activities secret. Seeing Silver laugh was worth a lot of things.

Two hours, four coffees and several meetings of his forehead with the wall later, Gold was dead set on escaping this place for his breakfast break. He needed some fresh, untainted air and normal people around him or he would snap and beat someone up.

Technically, he was on seven strikes (someone had started singing in a high-pitched voice while someone else tried to feed him chocolate hearts) by now but he refused to accept it. If he just ignored it, he would be fine and would survive the day. For the rest of the week, he would call in sick and so he could easily win the bet.

In the end, it didn't matter at all if he was on five or seven strikes, what was about to happen as soon as he had gotten off his chair and tried to leave the office through the mess of scattered flower heads, brought him to the verge of bursting with anger.

The door flew open to reveal a middle-aged man in a glittering, red suit and a matching, waving deep red cape, the hair as spectacular as the rest of his appearance. Everyone in the office stood up clapping their hands and cheering for their boss who bowed down before waving his cape even more. Someone across the room turned up the radio that was playing some cheesy love song, loud enough to blank out any other sound.

Ten stri- no, Gold would just go home. He had enough, he was so fed up with everyone and everything and his boss obviously was in a worse mood than usual and he would not deal with that today. Stupid Gold for missing out on the fact that today was Valentine's Day.

Without another word, he grabbed his bag and stormed past the cheering crowd of co-workers who were now enjoying a show of magical tricks by their boss. Fucking petals flying around everywhere, some of them hitting Gold's face and he had to brush them off while stomping through them as well. His head was about to explode from the smoky air and the loud music and that disgusting scent of roses that just seemed to get worse the more rose petals their boss threw into the office.

What the hell was wrong with people? How on Earth could they enjoy that dimwit and his passion for kitschy traditions? Who with a healthy mind could enjoy a day like Valentine's Day anyway?

"Gold! What pleasure to see you on a wonderful day like this!"

Dammit! Blame the stupid petals that he hadn't been able to sneak out of the office without catching the attention of his boss. Shit! In his head he could hear Silver laughing at him and he couldn't help but curse under his breath when he turned to face his supervisor.

"Mr. Suho." Gold faked a smile that spread over his whole face, his boss wasn't able to tell the difference between an honest smile and sarcasm anyway.

The middle-aged man tapped his index finger on his beardless chin as if in thought, opened his mouth to release an "Ah!" and wrapped an arm around Gold's shoulder to force him into a bone-crushing hug. "You know, Gold," he began just to stop for a dramatic pause, "I have been watching your contributions to my work with an eagle eye. I was worried, you wouldn't be able to keep up with the pace of your co-workers and our tight schedule."

Gold frowned at the blonde man, he considered speaking up but decided against it. The bet was still on and he _could_ win this, he could make it out of here, he just needed to be patient.

"Gold, I appreciate your efforts, your work is remarkable-" Really? He basically only did simple math but compared to his predecessor's work, he guessed, he must seem like a genius. "-although you are still so young."

Wherever this was leading, Gold was sure he didn't want to get there. "Sir, I-"

"Oh, call me Eusine, my dear," Mr. Suho chuckled at him, his sparkling blue eyes staring into Gold's, "We're a family here." The hand on Gold's upper-arm tightened again and he was pressed against the bigger man's chest; it grew harder to be patient. Gold's cheek felt itchy from the sequined red dress shirt and his arm hurt from the painful grasp, not to mention the cloud of aftershave that smelled more like women's perfume than for men. "So, in order to show my gratitude, I called your enchanting friend Silver and together we found the perfect gift to reward you."

What? Silver, that little piece of shit! It took Gold some effort to swallow his temper and let himself being dragged through the door into the corridor. So Silver had planned to break him in order to win the bet? Son of a bitch! Hadn't they agreed on playing fair? Well, he had never seen Silver regarding the rules, actually... but they were friends! Gold wanted to rip his head off, or someone else's, everyone in his striking distance gave him a good reason to kill them. He settled with balling his hands into fists and telling himself to kick Silver's ass later; it didn't help at all.

They stepped through the large doors leading to a backyard shared by several neighboring buildings. Mr. Suho's arm was still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, it had caused trouble walking down the stairs like that but his boss had obviously ignored how Gold had been stumbling down the steps. Even if, the tight grip around his torso would've prevented him from falling down.

When they walked past their little porch on which they usually spent their breaks, Gold grew a little nervous. What on Earth had they done? And what made him deserve it? The magician guided him through the few trees separating their part of the backyard with the rest, past the huge trash cans and towards the parking lot. As soon as they had reached the last obstacle, Mr. Suho let go of his shoulders and stepped behind him, his deep-red gloved hands covering Gold's eyes while they continued walking.

A few steps later they came to an abrupt halt that Gold bumped backwards into his boss who giggled in a shrill volume at the touch. "Easy, my dear, you will receive your reward soon enough!" he laughed into Gold's ear, fanning the side of his face with his peppermint breath. "And here it is! I used the remaining budget to buy you-"

The hands were taken away from his eyes and Gold was finally able to see his gift. His eyes settled onto the person across from him though, that smug grin on his face and his eyes shining triumphantly at him. That fucking bastard! Gold would kill him, for playing unfair and for making him lose the bet and for-

A pony. There was a pony, right in front of him. Creamy white with a red ribbon wrapped around its middle. Its mane was brownish, some strands looked like red tinsel and a few hearts were hanging on its hair tips. What the fucking hell?

"A pony?" Gold panted, still trying to remain calm but it was too late now anyway. His anger was growing in waves, pulsating under his skin and there was nothing, not even that fucking bet or Silver, that could stop him now. "YOU bought a fucking PONY from the budget?" He turned around to face his boss, his eyes wide and his face red from rage.

"Yes, there was enough money left and look at how cute it is!" Mr. Suho seemed unimpressed by his choice of words and tone of voice when he swirled around Gold, his cape dramatically waving along with his steps. He walked over to the pony to pet its head quickly then turned towards Silver to pay him the same bone-crushing hug Gold had received earlier. The annoyed expression on Silver's face and the squeak when the magician pressed him against his body only soothed Gold's nerves a little. "Your friend Silver told me you loved ponies and so I paid my aunt a visit to pick out the cutest pony for you!"

"You- what- NO!" Gold yelled, luckily able to ignore Silver laughing his ass off and pointing at him as if to say 'Look at your face!'. "I have been working my ass off to reduce the debt that idiot before me created and YOU waste the money -THE LAST BIT OF MONEY- away for a fricking PONY?" His ribcage was rapidly rising and falling by the time he was done with his speech, he was now completely ruled by his temper and gave a fuck about the damned bet he had just lost.

"You don't like it?" The entertainer looked at him in disappointment, "And I thought you liked ponies! Silver told me you've always wanted one!"

"That shithead WAS LYING!" When Silver stumbled over and held his belly while his body was shaking from his laughter, Gold lost it completely. "That asshole USED you to get back at me! You little piece of shit, we agreed to play fair!"

Silver reached for a nearby street lamp for balance and tried to come down from his high before responding. "I-... I'm... sorry, when he... when he came to me and... asked... me what you liked... I couldn't resist..." He was panting heavily and still laughing wholeheartedly while he pressed out, "It was the... perfect chance..."

"You- AAAHH!" Gold screamed in frustration; he needed to get away or he would seriously kill someone. Forcing himself to calm down, he thought about a way to get out of this fucking mess before something terrible would happen. "Okay, you get rid of that pony or find some other way to get the money back," he began, facing his boss before turning back to Silver, "And you... better not be there when I come home tonight."

Without paying them any more attention, Gold rushed past them, off the parking lot and onto the street. Luckily he had his bag with him and could take the next bus that took him far away from this circus of insanity. Hopefully somewhere where he could drink away all the frustration and wouldn't mind Silver's presence later tonight because he knew like he knew his name, that bastard would be home to shove his triumph over him into his face over and over again.

"Stupid fucker," he muttered as he reached the bus stop and sat down on the last empty seat. To make things even worse, it started to rain and he had left his umbrella as well as coat at home. Had Silver planned that as well? For all Gold knew, that idiot would influence the weather if he had the powers to. Angrily he hit his head against the bus stop's glass wall several times and let any insult he could come up with roll off his lips.

"Bad day, huh?" The man next to him was watching him from the corner of his eye, a gentle smirk adorning his lips.

Gold turned his head to examine the man, not in the mood to sit up so he remained leaned against the wall. Dressed in an expensive looking black coat, collar turned up and the orange-colored hair styled up in a strangely elegant mess; as much as it contrasted the old-fashioned, probably Prada coat, it matched its elegance perfectly. "Er... yes," Gold nodded with a frown. He knew this man, he knew him well but could it be... "Aren't you Lance Mokho, the great magician?"

"That I am," the man smirked in his famous charming manner, "I assume your boss taught you how to recognize me in my casual clothing."

Sighing Gold straightened up in his seat. "Yes, he's quite obsessed with you in my opinion." In fact, Mr. Suho spent more time ranting about his rival's latest show than working on his own performance, Gold had never quite understood that behavior. "Sir, how do you know I work for Mr. Suho?"

The older man chuckled, "I do know about my old friend's little enterprise. He's quite obsessed with you as well."

"Tch, I can do without that," Gold spat, his mind wandered back to what had only happened a few minutes ago. He intently hoped that damned pony would be gone by tomorrow, he would in no way deal with that as well as with the lost money. The uncovered bills that would be in the post the following days already appeared before his mental eye, they would surely bring him sleepless nights.

"You look like you could use a drink. Let me invite you to cheer you up," Mr. Mokho smiled at him and rose to his feet, "My favorite bar is right over there. I'll take responsibility for the lost work day."

Looking from the offered gloved hand up to the older man's smiling face and back, Gold was going through all the reasons why he shouldn't have a drink with his boss' rival in the early morning when he actually was supposed to calculate the remaining budget. Nothing seemed more inviting than a free drink.

With a smile on his lips, he took the man's hand and left his negative mood behind.


End file.
